Chapter 2: The Hungrier She-Hulk
The doorknit turned, stuck, then jiggled again.
“Lucky? Lewis? You two okay in there?” It was Marjorie from next door, her voice muffled by the wood. “I heard a… a crash.”
In the shattered mirror, Lucky saw the reflection of the door bulge slightly against the frame, as if the structure itself had expanded. Her new mass was pressed against the vanity. Lewis, still perched on the counter amid the ruins of the sink, looked from the straining door to her, his mouth a perfect ‘O’ of panic.
“Fine!” Lucky called out. The word was too loud, a booming declaration that made the light fixture shiver. She tried again, modulating, forcing her strange new vocal cords into something resembling a human register. “We’re fine, Marge! Just… dropped a hairdryer. Into the full tub. Big spark. All good now.”
The silence from the other side of the door was heavy with doubt.
“You sure? Sounded like the wall came down.”
“We’re sure!” Lewis squeaked, finding his voice. He forced a laugh. It sounded like a seagull being strangled. “Just a mess. We’ll clean it up!”
Another pause. “Alright then. Keep it down. Some of us have to work in the morning.”
They listened to the slow shuffle of Marjorie’s slippers retreating down the hall. The tension didn’t leave the room; it condensed, settling over them like the steam.
Lucky looked down. The world was from a different angle. The ceiling felt closer. The showerhead was a toy. And Lewis, sitting amidst the ceramic wreckage, seemed suddenly, devastatingly small. The memory of what had just happened—the crushing hunger, the deafening roar of her own pulse, the feeling of lifting him like he was made of balsawood, the catastrophic, shuddering culmination that had brought down the sink—flooded back in a hot, shameful wave. It hadn’t been passion. It had been a biological stampede.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, the words a low rumble. She stumbled back, her broad shoulder thudding against the wall. A hairline crack shot up the plaster. “Oh, God, Lewis. I’m… I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” he said quickly, too quickly, sliding off the counter. He winced as his feet touched the cold, wet floor littered with porcelain shards and shreds of silk. He was shivering. “I mean, it’s not. Obviously nothing is okay. But you… you weren’t you.”
“What does that even mean?” she snapped, anger flaring, a convenient spark to burn away the humiliation. “This is me now. This… green… thing.” She held up her hands, turning them over. The skin wasn’t just colored; it had a density to it, a subtle, leather-like texture. The veins beneath pulsed with a light that wasn’t quite light, more a suggestion of contained energy.
“It’s the fly,” Lewis said, bending to pick up his jeans. He kept his eyes averted, a formality that felt absurd given the circumstances. “That fly was, like, nuclear or something. It changed you. This is a… a superhero origin story.”
“A what?” Lucky’s laugh was a short, harsh bark. “I’m a regional sales director for a packaging supply firm, Lewis. I have a 401(k). I don’t have an origin story. I have quarterly targets.” The enormity of it pressed down on her. Tuesday. The merger meeting. Henderson from Logistics who always eyed her across the boardroom. How could she walk into that room now? She pictured the glass door of the conference room shattering as she tried to enter.
“Well, you’ve got one now,” Lewis muttered, pulling on his jeans. He dared a glance at her. “Are you… staying like this?”
The question hung in the humid air. Lucky focused inward. The buzzing, overwhelming power surge had receded, leaving behind a deep, resonant hum in her bones. She didn’t feel like she was shrinking. She felt solid. Permanent.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, the anger deflating into a weary dread. She touched the side of her neck. The sting was gone, replaced by smooth, unblemished green skin. “It doesn’t feel… temporary.”
Lewis finally looked at her fully, his teenage brain now switching from panic to a kind of frantic problem-solving. “Okay. Okay. Step one: you can’t stay in the bathroom. Step two: clothes. Step three: figure out what the hell that fly was and how to reverse it.”
“Clothes,” Lucky repeated dully. Her robe was hanging on the back of the door. It was a plush, lavender thing. It would look like a napkin on her now. Despair threatened to well up, a cold tide. She pushed it down. She was still, underneath it all, the woman who’d fought her way up from the customer service desk. Crisis management. This was just a new, profoundly weird form of crisis.
“The closet,” she said, her voice gaining a shred of its old decisiveness. “In my bedroom. The suitcase. My winter coat is in there. It’s big. Burly. It might… fit.”
Lewis nodded, a soldier with a mission. He crept to the bathroom door, opened it a crack, and peered out. “Coast is clear.”
Moving through her own apartment was a surreal exercise in destruction. She had to turn sideways to exit the bathroom. Her hip brushed against the doorframe, and a chunk of wood trim splintered off with a dry crack. She stared at it.
“Sorry,” she rumbled.
“It’s fine,” Lewis whispered, leading the way. “We’ll… we’ll fix it.”
The hallway seemed narrow, a tunnel. In her bedroom, the queen-sized bed looked diminutive, quaint. The floral patterns on the duvet were suddenly ridiculous. Lewis hauled her largest suitcase from the top of the closet, unzipped it, and pulled out a heavy, charcoal-gray wool peacoat.
Lucky took it. The fabric felt flimsy in her grasp. She worked her arms into the sleeves. The seams screamed, stretched to their absolute limit across her shoulders and back. It wouldn’t button, not even close, but it hung open, covering the front of her in a way that felt marginally less exposed. She looked like a mountain awkwardly stuffed into a tent.
Lewis assessed her. “It’s… modest?”
“It’s a start,” she said. A new, more pragmatic horror was dawning. “Food. I’m… I’m starving.” The hunger was back, not the chaotic frenzy from before, but a deep, hollow ache that felt like it went down to her marrow.
The kitchen was a minefield of normalcy. She pulled open the fridge, the handle bending slightly in her grip. The bright interior light illuminated leftovers in tidy containers: grilled chicken salad, quinoa, yogurt. It looked like dollhouse food. The thought of eating it was laughable.
Her eyes landed on the bottom drawer. Without thinking, she ripped it open, seized the whole package of frozen hamburger patties—two pounds worth—and tore the plastic apart. She shoved one into her mouth. It was a solid, frozen brick. Her new teeth met it with a crunch. The cold was nothing. The flavor, bloody and metallic, was everything. She devoured it in two bites and reached for another.
Lewis watched, mesmerized and slightly horrified. “I could… defrost those?”
She shook her head, swallowing. “Doesn’t matter.” She finished the second patty, then the third. The gnawing void inside her abated, just a little. She leaned against the kitchen counter. It groaned in protest.
“The fly,” she said, licking a stray crumb of frozen beef from her thumb. “Where did it even come from?”
Lewis’s eyes widened. “The window! In the bathroom. It was hot. You opened it a crack before you… before we…” He trailed off, flushing. “It must have gotten in from the alley.”
The alley. Behind their building was a service lane for dumpsters and a forgotten, fenced-off lot where the city had once done some utility work. There were always rumors about that lot.
“We need to go look,” Lucky said.
“Now? It’s the middle of the night. You’re eight feet tall and green.”
“Exactly. Less witnesses.” She straightened up, the coat straining. A new, grim determination was crystallizing. This wasn’t a boardroom problem, but it was a problem. And Lucky solved problems. “Get a flashlight. And put on shoes.”
Lewis opened his mouth to argue, then saw the look in her eye. It was the same look she’d given him when he’d wanted to drop out of algebra. A look that brooked no argument.